CDOQ

Last week, I attended a workshop on Global Human Potential at Esalen . It was an educating workshop taught by three distinguished people: 1) Ralph Abraham : Chaos theory pioneer and mathematician 2) Mary Catherine Bateson : Cultural anthropologist and Margaret Mead's daughter 3) Jean Houston : Philosopher The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. Following are a few interesting things I learned during the workshop: The teachers are worried about the cultural crises we are in. Humans are facing multiple crises- Identity, Intimacy, Generative, etc. If we don't take an initiative to change things today, the civilization may end in 150 years. Fractals , which are a fascinating phenomenon in nature i.e. a self repeating pattern which creates a shape that is like the self-repeating part, has a philosophical definition as well. In philosophy, fractal is a boundary between two regions. Humans repeat same patterns over and over and these patterns come to define ...

Why are people resistant to change? If I do repetitive work, I get bored. However, I notice most people do not want to try new things. They are happy with how things are. Is it genetic? Is it circumstantial?

I attended a lecture by Dean Kaman yesterday. He is the guy who invented the Segway among many other useful things. I learned that 1.6B people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water and hence 2M people die every year because of it. If you combine the deaths ever year because of all chronicle diseases combined, it is less than 2M. Hundreds of billions of dollars go into research to find cure to these diseases but only a few million to provide clean water where it is needed. Also, 1.1B people in the world don't have electricity at their house and 1+M people die because of it. Unbelievable! Don't you think that we who live in the developed world have the responsibility to change the situation? "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead Your thoughts?